When Kate and I went herding and picking blackberries last weekend while the boys were bringing home the straw, I brought the camera along – for part of the time, she was a willing smiler!!

When I was herding these cattle on Monday, they were following me out of the field and next thing, one of them head-butted me in the back – luckily not too hard or I would have gone flying.  They are a tad too friendly!!

This is the walk up to our outfarm from the lane – my favourite part of the farm. It is so peaceful up there, not a soul to be seen but lovely views. The only noise the other day was a pheasant that I startled as it flew out of the hedge.

I made some fruit tarts with the blackberries and a blackberry cake – the recipe I got from the ‘Diary of a Country Wife’ blog, now Marie’ s blog shows what the cake should look like – here is my version but it still tasted scrummy and didn’t last long at all!  If you still have some blackberries, you’ll find the recipe at Marie’s blog too.

As the evenings are starting to draw in, it is time to think about brightening up the evenings with some festive decorations.  Follow our directions to create a suitably scary and ghoulish home this Hallow’een to scare the most terrifying of trick or treaters. 

1. Make your own Jack O’ Lantern.

Hallow’een would not be hallow’een without pumpkins now. Use a stencil to carve out a scary face on your pumpkin.    Place a lighted candle inside and place the pumpkins at your front door or even a line of them along the path to your front door!

It may be easier to scoop out the pumpkin from the bottom and then you can place the pumpkin down over the lighted candle.

Cut pumpkins only stay fresh for a few days so keep them in a cool environment or coat the raw edges with Vaseline.

2. Make flying bats from paper.

 Make a flying bat by folding a piece of thick black paper in half, trace half a head and wing along the fold and cut along the line.  Tie some fishing line from a tiny hole in the paper and attach to light fittings or tape to the ceiling.

You could also make witches on broomsticks, ghosts (with white paper), half moons and anything else ghoulish that you can think of. If you tape them to a torch, it will create an impressively scary shadow on the wall.

3. Hallow’een Wreath

Front door wreaths need not just be for Christmas – why not brighten up your front door with a Hallow’een wreath? Choose a simple wreath with orange berries and autumnal leaves and create a lovely welcome for any visitors.  If you want to emphasise the hallow’een theme, place a puppet witch figure sitting in the centre of the wreath.

4. Create a creepy atmosphere

 Fake cobwebs with the occasional large fake spider hanging from pictures and draped across the hall are cost-effective ways to create a creepy atmosphere.

Other suggestions would be to make a coffin with a hand or arm sticking out of it!

5. Create a haunted house.

 Drape white sheets over the furniture to create a ‘haunted house’ look.

6.  Decorating your Hallow’een Dinner Table

 Place candles and small pumpkins within glass cylinders  or vases – the glass containers add dramatic effect to the pumpkins.

You could even use mini pumpkins instead of name cards at the table – use a drill to bore holes to shape each person’s name if you happen to have loads of time.  You could also place votive candles into tiny pumpkins and place them at random in the centre of the table or along a sideboard.

And what about these fabulous napkin rings – do a bit of Blue Peter with pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, nuts and leaves:

7. For your hallway

 Wnat to impress your guests or ‘trick or treaters’? Place three or five hurricane lamps (in different sizes) together in your hall.  Surround the base of the candle in each one with something different that suggests autumn and hallow’een. Suggestions include apples, greenery, autumn leaves, horse chestnut conkers.  Something like below but  on a bigger scale.

Place a floral display on a console table -  using orange flowers such as Chinese Lanterns will create a suitable ‘hallow’een’ theme.  Here’s my own floral arrangement from last weekend using flowers from the garden:

8. Decorating your mantelpiece

 Decorate with tall candleholders and candles in reds, oranges or golds.  Fill a glass vase with an assortment of nuts.  Scatter a few pine cones  intermixed with mini pumpkins and you’ll have a sensational seasonal mantlepiece.

I’m just waiting for the children to arrive home with all their school-made spiders, bats, ghosts etc and our kitchen will be transformed!!  Have fun.  Let everyone join in with a pumpkin carving party or have a competition.  Remember the traditional games such as bobbing for apples. But above all be safe – and take special care with children and candles.

(Images: Country Living and my own)

For anyone interested in vegetable gardening (and it’s become a very popular past time lately), Dee Sewell’s new blog Greenside Up is a must.  Filled with tips, recipes, stories, hints and pictures, it is a hive of information.  Dee also has lots of useful info on her website which can be accessed from her blog.

Dee and her family moved over from England when her children were small and I first met her a toddler group.  As our children go to different schools, we don’t tend to see much of each other now but we’re recently meeting up at various networking events and training talks by local enterprise boards etc.  It’s surprising and great to see how many women are now starting their own businesses and being enthusisastic as well as resourceful in this so-called recession. Dee also teaches classes in vegetable gardening – both in one-off lessons and a module of 5 weeks – one morning a week, based in Baganelstown and Old Leighlin.

So do check out her blog – stories of capturing catarpillars await you!

Seeing Mise’s post on Squint’s very colourful furniture the other day, reminded me to post about Ginny Avison’s patchwork designs that looked stunning at Decorex this year.

Like Mise, I think I would be somewhat bemused sitting amongst it and I’m not so sure I could live with it, simply because it needs really clean lines within a room for it to work and hey, I’m a clutter queen at times but I do think they are gorgeous.  (Warning: you may need sunglasses!)

Ginny is a upholstery patchwork artist based in London. The fabrics used are Designers Guild, Romo, Casamance, Linwood and others.

And this is especially for all those chesterfield lovers out there.  The diamond design is a trademark of Ginny’s. The fabrics can be multi-coloured and as bright as you like or you can go for particular shades, for example, every fabric is of a different berry shade.

And if you feel like spoiling your cat!

And if you’d like to see colourful sofas in a room set, check out the photo below, the new Rythme sofa by Roche Bobois, covered in Missoni fabric.

 And last but not least, Silhousette armchairs in Tendresse leather

Today’s ‘interior design solution’ is about different linings for curtains.  A new client recently had a few requests for her new curtains – she wanted to use a coloured lining rather than the standard white, she didn’t want a patterned fabric but liked the idea of something plain yet slightly textured, she wanted it to be black-out and not cost an arm and a leg.  So I will share with you what I came up with – we used Designers Guild’s Striato fabric as the lining.

Some of the fabrics resemble a very shiny silk, others have a finely ribbed finish so look slightly textured.  They provide complete blackout so you can get a full night’s sleep and the use of the coloured fabric as a co-ordinating lining looks ever so luxurious.

Striato fabric (which also looks great in curtains in their own right) costs €22 per metre.

Next week: Wallpapering small rooms especially downstairs toilets